


The Seventh Singe

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-01
Updated: 2007-04-01
Packaged: 2019-01-19 13:56:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12411621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Sisters talk on the eve of one of their weddings and lives are altered forever.read/review.





	The Seventh Singe

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

Sweet is the sight 

Of her room

 Window opened by candlelight

 How would you know

 Cold winter on the shore 

Chills the dress she wore

 It's on the floor 

Still it feels so warm today 

And that's why I'm wondering why 

You had to tell me 

What's going on in your head

 What's wrong 

Come around to another time when you 

Don't have to run

Howie Day, “She Says”   

 

\---       

Everything was changing on that morning, and there was really no way to slow them down.

            She stood in her lilac bridesmaid’s dress, staring at her reflection in the mirror.  She tried to smile, but as she did, tears threatened to flood her eyes and leave mascara stained snakes down her cheeks.  And that would certainly not do, not at all.

            She heard a knock on the door and a voice called to her, asking if she was finally ready, because it was nearly time.

            She shook her head, but realizing the speaker could not see her gesture, she cleared her throat.

            “Not quite,” she said, her voice hoarse.

            “Do hurry up dear, Andromeda must be nearly ready by now.

            Narcissa swallowed hard, knowing what her aunt would find once she finally forced her way into Andromeda’s bedroom.

            She sat down on the bed, suddenly feeling weak.

            Andromeda was gone.  Virtually disappeared off the face of the earth.  It was all because of _him._ Ted Tonks.

            Naricssa let out a mirthless laugh, followed by the tears that had been threatening her all morning.  She had known all along this was going to happen.  Andromeda had decided to leave Lucius Malfoy at the altar.

            Narcissa had known this all along.   Andromeda had burst into her room around two o’clock last night, waking Narcissa from a sound sleep.

            “I can’t marry him, Cissa.”

            “You have to, Andie.  Mother and Father-“

            “They don’t get it.  Times have changed.  You don’t just auction off a daughter anymore to the highest bidder.”

            “Stop.  It wasn’t that archaic.”

            “All that nonsense about mixing with the right sort of blood, you really buy into that?”

            “Yes.” Narcissa said it with such finality that Andromeda backed off for a minute or two.

            Finally, she continued.  “Don’t you ever wonder if there’s more out there, Cissa?  If we’re not being cheated out of everything to satisfy a lifestyle that is dying slowly?  It’s all decaying, day by day, and maybe you can’t see it, but the world we knew when we were six isn’t the same one today.  It isn’t all fancy parties and tea socials.  It’s becoming more and more corrupt everyday as he gains power and-“

            “Shh,” Narcissa interrupted.  “Stop it.  Everything you’re saying, it’s not true.  Somehow you’ve been brainwashed or something.  You’re confused Andie.  You have cold feet.  You have to marry Malfoy.  You just have to!”

            Narcissa’s voice reached a scarily high pitch and the tears began to flow freely from her eyes.  She was scared.  Terrified actually, because she knew these words.  They had been Sirius’ before he left his childhood home a year earlier.  But even more alarming was that they were the same words that echoed in her heart and mind every waking second of the day.

            Andromeda locked eyes with her younger sister.  Narcissa was sixteen and naïve.  Andromeda herself was now eighteen and in love.  Narcissa would one day understand that.  However, she would not understand the conflict that now gripped Andromeda’s heart.  The conflict between family and what she truly believed to be fate.  And fate did not include Lucius Malfoy.

            “It’s declining.  No matter what you say, there is no changing that.  Everything’s on decline.  Any day it could all end.  I just want to love and be loved while I have the chance to.  Can’t you understand that?”

            Narcissa didn’t respond.

            Finally, after ten minutes of silence, Andromeda rose to leave the room.

            Before she reached the door, Narcissa spoke.

            “Andie, is it Tonks?”

            Her sister nodded.

            “And you really love him?”

            Once again, a nod.

            “He’ll never give you the lifestyle that Malfoy could.”

            “I can live without money.”

            “No you can’t, Andie.  You’ll never make it without money.”

            Andromeda didn’t speak for a minute, but, as though showing that she acknowledged what her sister was saying as the truth, she walked back over to the bed and sank down.

            “I really do wish he was richer,” she finally responded.  “But if I had to choose between being a trophy wife and living a loveless life or being poor and having a husband devoted to me, I’d choose that.  Because I know Ted will work hard to make me happy.  And I do love him.  If I walk away from Ted now, I’ll always wonder forever.  When I’m sitting alone, wondering where Lucius is or who the other woman is, I’ll also be thinking that Ted would never do that to me.  And I can’t live with that regret.”

            Narcissa was silent.

            Finally she spoke again.  “I’ll never forgive you.”

            “Yes you will.”

            “No, I won’t.  But I won’t say anything.  Just promise me you’ll leave quickly and quietly, before the wedding.”

            “I will.  Take care Cissa. I’ll miss you.”

            Narcissa was silent.  A thousand thoughts filled her mind, but not a single one seemed to perfectly capture the emotion she was feeling.  Tears choked her into silence.  

            “Me too,” she whispered.  Andromeda squeezed her shoulder and then made her way to the door.

            And that was that.  Andromeda slipped from Narcissa’s room without a sound.  She knew she’d never see her sister again.  What was worse, she knew that one day, Malfoy would get the Black bride that he demanded, and as the sole single remaining Black daughter, it would be her debt to pay.

            She didn’t fall back asleep.  After an hour, she tip-toed to Andie’s room to make sure she was gone.  Sure enough, all of her clothes and personal belongings were gone.  All that was left was the furniture, and the wedding robes, which hung like an ugly foreshadowing for her own bleak future.  Realizing Andie would probably want a few hours in the morning to disappear with Ted (because really, where else would she disappear to), she scribbled a note, forging Andie’s handwriting.

            _Please don’t disturb.  I’ve hired my own people to fix my hair and what not for the wedding, and they will be apparating in.  Will finally emerge around_ _noon_ _.  (Mum, please don’t fuss.  It will be fine.)_

            She posted the note on the door and cast a charm to cause voices to be heard from outside the room.  It wasn’t perfect, but it would buy them time.   

            She was shaking as she finally crawled back into bed, waiting the morning light.

            That morning, she was awoken promptly at seven.  She began to get ready, fixing her hair and make-up.  She shimmied into her gown.  And then she waited.  Finally, it was noon.

            “Narcissa dear, its time for your sister to come out.”

            She heard a knock down the hallway on Andie’s door.

            “Andromeda!” She heard voices calling her sister.  Still nothing.

            Finally, she heard Andie’s door open.

            “Oh dear god,” Her mother said. 

            Chaos ensued.  And finally Narcissa emerged from her bedroom, virtually unseen.

            She saw her parents running around, trying to find her sister.  Narcissa thought for a moment that she should have forged a second note, a goodbye note, to at least fill in some of the answers.

            Chaos soon gave way to hysteria.  Tears were followed by angry shrieking, and somehow, in the madness, word was spread that Andromeda had run away and the wedding was cancelled.  No one knew for sure where she was, but it was assumed she was with the filthy Ted Tonks.

            Much later that night, after an exhausting day of calmly explaining to numerous relatives that no, she had no idea where her sister was and that she was just as distraught as them, Narcissa found herself wondering into Andie’s abandoned bedroom.

            She sat down on her sister’s bed, exhausted.

            She was angry and hurt and scared.  But more than anything, she missed her older sister.

            She didn’t hear footsteps enter the bedroom.  It wasn’t until she felt a strong hand on her back that she jumped and looked up.

            “Not mourning our traitorous sister, Cissa darling, are we?”  It was Bellatrix.  Narcissa was vaguely surprised she hadn’t heard from her sooner.

            “Bella, I can’t right now-“

            “I think you knew she was going to leave.”

            Bella’s words hung in the air like a shotgun.  Narcissa tried to speak, but sheer exhaustion kept her from denying her oldest sister’s statement.

            Bella sighed at Narcissa’s silence.  “Why?  Why did she go to you and not me?  I could have told her things would have been fine with Malfoy.  It didn’t have to end like this.”

            “She was going to leave regardless of what anyone said,” Narcissa said flatly.

            After a strangled pause, Bella continued.  “Mother and Father decided that we need to speak.  There are arrangements that need to be made.”

            “Such as?”                                                                                                                    

            “I think you know, Cissa.”

            She sighed.  “Bella-“

            “Buck up, dear.  Andie was always too weak to really ever fit into this lifestyle.  You can’t afford to turn out weak too.”

            And the two walked out of Andromeda’s bedroom, heading toward the future.  As Narcissa closed the bedroom door behind her, she had a feeling that no one would ever enter the threshold of that room ever again.  Giving it one final look, she took a deep breath.

            She was ready.

            


End file.
